Our family is working with Las Tierras Community Church in far east El Paso. Las Tierras is a multi-cultural church in an area that is 90% Hispanic. Jeff is leading worship and teaching Sunday school. He also preaches once a month. Both Jeff and Heather are helping organize youth activities. We couldn’t ask for a better mentor than Pastor Manuel Padilla, who served with Mission to the World for 15 years in Spain before coming to the border.
While Las Tierras Community Church serves a primarily 2nd and 3rd generation Hispanic area, the bulk of our family's ministry is in Montana Vista, a "colonia" or an unicorporated area in the desert outside of El Paso.
The thing that surprises me the most is that almost all the houses are works in progress. Almost everyone is working on their house. Many of the buildings were started and never finished. Others are pieced together over time with the materials available. Some of them have faded and ripped black tar paper around them, but no siding. Other homes are made of concrete block using the construction methods common in Chihuahua and other parts of Mexico. But of these few are finished. There are a few beautiful homes, with stucco and painted with clean bold colors. Some of the houses are painted with bright colors. But the majority of the homes are still trailers.
Each house tells a story of hope, ingenuity, hardship, toil, and sometimes tragedy. There are not a small number of charred remains of trailers and homes burnt down or badly damaged by fire. I am told that these fires are caused by people using unsafe methods of heating their home in the cold winter months.
It seems like the community of Montana Vista is much like one of these pieced together homes. People staked out a future on the edge of the desert. It was rough and barren, but people worked hard to build a better life. Over time the community took shape. People came and people left. Various churches and community organizations came in to help cultivate the community. Through hard work bit by bit, family by family, the community grew. New schools were built. More services were added. You can still see the tar paper blowing in the wind, but a beautiful home is taking shape. Will it ever be a finished product?
Each house tells a story of hope, ingenuity, hardship, toil, and sometimes tragedy. There are not a small number of charred remains of trailers and homes burnt down or badly damaged by fire. I am told that these fires are caused by people using unsafe methods of heating their home in the cold winter months.
It seems like the community of Montana Vista is much like one of these pieced together homes. People staked out a future on the edge of the desert. It was rough and barren, but people worked hard to build a better life. Over time the community took shape. People came and people left. Various churches and community organizations came in to help cultivate the community. Through hard work bit by bit, family by family, the community grew. New schools were built. More services were added. You can still see the tar paper blowing in the wind, but a beautiful home is taking shape. Will it ever be a finished product?
